# RPG A DAY 2024: RPG with great writing? tags: #thoughts #thoughts/RPGaDay/2024 ![[RPGaDAY2024-024x723.jpg]] Ironically, possibly amusingly, I don't usually buy RPGs for the quality of their writing. More accurately, I don't normally buy them for the quality of their incidental writing. I look at RPGs as technical documents first and foremost, because my preference is to play for sure GMless these days. A vast pile of backstory and accumulated writing is basically wasted on me. The books I enjoy the most tend to be largely technical in construction and parsimonious with backstory because *I* am an accomplished writer. I don't look for that to be given to me in someone else's text. I'm also looking at things that I picked up in the last year just to try and narrow it down a bit. Because if we go back to the beginning of my library, I'm never going to get anything published here because that goes back to the late '80s and a few things before. Ain't nobody got time for that. As a calculated choice, I'm going to go with one of the few things that I own which is *purely* content supplemental, doesn't attach itself to any system and is thematic as hell. **[[Not a Place of Honor]]**. ![[Not a Place of Honor (cover).jpg]] This is essentially just a big chunk of really fascinating scene-setting, structured concept dropped into stuff that looks like original documentation for places no one wants to be. Essentially, it's a book just about how to contain nightmarish things, whether they be bio-engineered plagues, or out-of-control artificial intelligences, or incredibly powerful soul-destroying magic, all fold together in a single book. Like a series of extracted documents. If you've ever read any of the [SCP](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/), you'll get the general idea. It's like that. There's also some discussion of how to make your own, how to describe your own, what kind of things are in common. Frankly, I think it's one of the best game supplements I own in the library, but it's certainly one of the best things I've picked up in the last year. No doubt, no question. ![[Not a Place of Honor Open (illo).jpg]]